I have been pondering the difference in what is acceptable in the different states/localities that we have lived. When my husband & I were first married, we lived in Brookings, SD. The people there acted as if I was coming from a barbaric land. They asked if I was enjoying the local amenities like running water, etc. The funny part of it was that a lot of the farms in and around Brookings did not have running water and their electric lights were just a hanging bulb from the ceiling in 1966. They had cisterns and outhouses. Many of the farmers did not have a telephone either. That really shocked me since we had had running water in the house, electricity, and phone service for years. The only place I knew of that did not having running water was a ranch near Isabel but they did have electricity & phone service. The East River perception was that we were all "cowboys" & "Indians" out west. Needless to say, I was in a state of culture shock.
This is a short list of the differences I have noticed in some of the places that we lived:
The blindness to the poor & prejudice toward Indians in Martin, SD. I have never seen a more disadvantaged economic group of people than the Indians on the SD reservations. There were families living in abandoned, wrecked cars. No houses – just those cars even in the winter! They seemed to walk or bum rides from people with cars in order to go anywhere. And yet, they were very hygienic compared to groups of the poor I have seen in other localities. The weird part was that the "whites" I knew were very sympathetic to those poor "Negroes" down South (remember this was the 1960’s).
Texans were (are) arrogant – blustery, bragging, and never forgot that Texas had been an independent country for a short while. But their personal hygiene left a lot to be desired. According to my sister who runs apartment complexes, that hasn’t changed. She does not want to rent to Texans since they mess up the apartments so badly that it costs too much to clean the apartments in order to rent them again.
Utah was very interesting. You never want to live in a state that a dominant religion controls the state government. Talk about censorship. People told me that the library would not keep books with a Protestant or Catholic bent on the shelves. I tested that statement by giving the library 2 books. Lo & behold, the one with a Catholic story line was checked out of the library in 2 weeks & never returned. A very effective form of censorship without causing waves.
We won’t go into the way that jobs, recreation, and shopping was controlled in that little town. Nor the way that education, especially for females, was substandard. It has been the only place we lived that high school graduates could not read the warning signs placed in the gas refinery where I worked. And yet, the people were very warm-hearted. The flip side through was kids & women seemed to have a lot of black eyes and bruises showing. While we lived there, I heard that Utah had more lawsuits pending than any other state in the Union. The sad part of it is that I believe that statement was probably true.
What I remember most about Montana was the individualistic personalities and their figures of speech. People from Montana say "damn" & "Goddamn" a whole lot. You really sit up & take notice when a Catholic priest says "God-damn" (without emphasis) in a friendly voice. The phrase was just a figure of speech to him similar to a friend on mine's phrase "little shits" when talking about kids.
Here, people seem to be hung up with bowel language. I’ve heard the receptionists’ in the medical clinic inform patrons "I’ve had a brain fart, I can’t remember your name." My daughter's boss in her new job recommended that she take vitamin C but that "it would give her the shits". These are professional people and it really grabs your attention when they speak in this manner.
Guess what I'm trying to say is that every locality seems to have their blindspots. Unless you're an "outsider" calling attention to this blindspot, it is never recognized.
| posted by Mia at 2:46 AM |
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Camie
